


Ribbon

by chamyl



Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, Backstory, Banter, Canon Related, Comfort, F/M, Humor, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Light-Hearted, Past Tense, Rare Pairing, Romance, Sad, Sexual Tension, Teenagers, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-26
Updated: 2011-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamyl/pseuds/chamyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turn Back the Pendulum Arc. After Yoruichi leaves Soul Society, Byakuya goes to look for the ribbon she stole from his hair. Too bad Suì-Fēng couldn't care less about helping him, and too bad neither of them expected this to evolve into their first kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ribbon

For a while, he didn’t really believe she was gone. Maybe it was just one more of her jokes. Maybe she was playing some sort of twisted round of hide-and-seek. It wouldn’t have surprised him in the least.

Then, more details started pouring through, even into the strictly controlled doors of the Kuchiki mansion. There had been some sort of mess-- something about her being a traitor, and being exiled, forever.

Exiled, forever.

He didn’t immediately grasp what that meant. It became to dawn on him slowly as the days went by. They wouldn’t ‘play’ together anymore. He wouldn’t see her anymore. He wouldn’t be annoyed at her anymore.

At first, Byakuya was happy. Yes, he was. No more stupid were-cat women interrupting his afternoons of serious training. No more jokes and laughs and making a fool of himself right where his grandfather could see. No more of that. Now he could focus only on becoming stronger and deserving the title of Head of the Kuchiki Clan, like it was natural and fair. He would bring honour to his family. Whether that woman was around did not make a difference.

At least, that’s what he thought.

Two weeks later and he realised he’d constantly been blowing his hair away from his face as he trained. Where was his ribbon? He _could_ have got a new one, but what about the one he usually had? That’s when he remembered, the last game of tag between him and Yoruichi had seen him losing. He never got his ribbon back. Strange, isn’t it, that he would realize as much so many days later?

He sat down to catch his breath and thought to himself Yoruichi couldn’t really be gone. She surely was not dead, she was too fast for anyone to catch. She was just hiding somewhere.

He would find her, he decided. It would be the first success in his long career in the Gotei 13. He would find her and she’d face the trial for whatever she’d done. Yes. That’s how it was fair for things to go.

He didn’t know where to start, though. Any other time he would have gone to Urahara Kisuke, a weird man-- but surely he would have known about Yoruichi’s whereabouts. Too bad that he was gone, too.

Then, he remembered. They’d never really talked and he always got the impression she didn’t like him much (he didn’t care), but there was a girl always following Yoruichi. Her bodyguard or something. What was her name again? He must have heard it a thousand times from Yoruichi’s lips but never really cared to remember it. He knew she was a noble, like him, but from a lower family, and that put her automatically below his notice.

She would know though, wouldn’t she? She was Yoruichi’s shadow. Surely the woman wouldn’t leave without telling her protegée where she was going. She must have left her at least a hint, right?

He decided that if somebody knew about the were-cat (and, more importantly, about his ribbon’s) location, that’d be the girl.

Finding her turned out to be harder than he thought. Nobody in the Second Division headquarters seemed to know where she’d ended up, even if they immediately recognized him and treated him with the respect he deserved. Even the fat lieutenant made time to see him, despite the fact he was incredibly busy, having been left with a division to handle without a word of warning.

“Suì-Fēng?” he’d asked. “You will probably find her down in the woods. Careful, she’s become better at hiding her reiatsu and if she thinks you’re a threat she won’t think twice before trying to kill you. Don’t come up behind her.”

He was then swallowed by trembling mountains of paperwork, leaving Byakuya on his own in his hunt.

The woods around the Second Division were thick and dark, perfect to train, awful if you’re looking for someone-- but he found her, at last. She was standing in the middle of a clearing, breathing heavily, uniform dirty and broken branches on the ground that seemed to have been ripped right off the trees. He could only conclude this division had a weird way to train.

“Oi,” he called, expecting the same respect the other people at her division showed to him. “I came to talk to you.”

She didn’t turn around. Maybe she hadn’t heard? He walked closer, now starting to feel definitely frustrated. “Didn’t your hear me?” No reply.

Now he was sure she was ignoring him on purpose. He stood right in front of her, there was no way she hadn’t noticed him by now, but she kept staring at the ground and didn’t speak a word. Arrogant brat, who did she think she was? She _had_ to reply to him, he’d come all this way just to talk to her.

“Where is she?” He asked, and, as he expected, no reply came. His eyebrow started twitching. He reached out and put both hands on the girl’s shoulders, trying to shake her out of whatever thoughts were keeping her so busy she had no time to reply to the future Head of the Kuchiki clan. “She has my ribbon. I want it ba--”

He was stopped mid-sentence when the girl finally raised her eyes to meet his, he realised she was more than a little annoyed. She was furious, even though he couldn’t figure out why. She... also had black circles around her eyes, and he was close enough to notice the skin of her cheeks was still damp. She’d been crying, hadn’t she? He opened his mouth to ask, then thought better of it. It was none of his business, he was just there for his ribbon. He’d find out where Yoruichi was, get it back, and go home.

There was a long, awkward silence then. She held his gaze despite how obvious it was she was anything but all right, and he didn’t keep asking anymore. Somehow, he thought he could now be sure this girl didn’t know either. But he didn’t want to run away, either. There was something keeping him there-- to be honest, he’d never given her a second look, she seemed completely focused on Yoruichi (if not obsessed); back always ramrod straight and brow always furrowed; but this time she looked different. She looked _frail_ , even though he knew that wasn’t the best word for it, considering he’d seen her fight. But it was the only word he could think of, frail-- frail and hurt. Yoruichi hadn’t say goodbye to anyone, apparently. Not to him, and not to her, even though he (and everyone else) was aware this girl’s life had been spent being the woman’s faithful servant. Admirable, in some ways.

He wasn’t sure what possessed him then (later on he blamed it on the fact she looked in need of someone to protect her, on hormones, on his hair falling into his eyes and distracting him from his logical, proper thoughts), but Byakuya leaned towards her and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips.

He pulled away quickly, quickly enough not to miss the fact she’d closed her eyes for a split second. Soon she opened them again, looking at him, completely bewildered.

“I...” he started a sentence even though he had no idea what he was going to say, but was interrupted by a sharp stab of pain between his legs. And no, nothing he could blame on hormones, he was sure it was rather safe to assume the girl’s knuckles crashing against delicate parts of his anatomy had been the cause.

“Hey! What the--”

“You startled me! It was your fault!”

They looked at each other for a moment, then she disappeared before his eyes without another word.

Byakuya went back home, thinking to himself he’d learned several things that day. First, that he had a soft spot for women who looked frail and defenceless. Second, that getting punched in the testicles really hurt. Third, that he would probably really never see Yoruichi again, or get his ribbon back.

And last but not least. He would never speak another word to Suì-Fēng (now he suddenly remembered her name really well). Hopefully she’d go off to chase Yoruichi and wouldn’t stay in Soul Society much longer. Having to work with her would be really awkward.


End file.
